Tommy Thayer reveals couple of his Black ‘N Blue bandmates resented that he would always take charge

Tommy Thayer reveals couple of his Black ‘N Blue bandmates resented that he would always take charge

Current KISS and former Black ‘N Blue guitarist Tommy Thayer was recently interviewed by Andrew Daly for Vinyl Writer Music. Thayer provided an in-depth interview about his days in Black N’ Blue during which time the band released the albums Black ‘N Blue (1984), Without Love (1985), Nasty Nasty (1986) and In Heat (1988). Black ‘N Blue‘s line-up on those albums also included Jaime St. James, bassist Patrick Young, drummer Pete Holmes and guitarist Jeff “Woop” Warner.

Daly asked Thayer what led to the decision to dissolve Black N’ Blue back in 1989 after the release of their fourth album In Heat to which the guitarist replied (with slight edits):

“For In Heat, we hired Gene [Simmons] again to produce, and I think we felt we might have been on our last leg with Geffen at that point. Again, Gene was diligent and spent a lot of time with us, we always felt he was behind us and got us. He was great. The album was cool and rocked, not too over-produced, it felt good. We all liked the title In Heat, and with us shirt-less on the cover, it kind of reminded me of a Deep Purple In Rock or Burn kind of cover. Besides the Hugh Syme logo, our fourth cover was the only one I liked. The enthusiasm and support from the label weren’t quite there anymore, the tour support had dwindled. We were playing third slots on smaller tours at that point. No more shows with Aerosmith and KISS.

I remember being on tour the summer of 1988, and [John] Kalodner called to tell me, regretfully, that Geffen wasn’t going to continue as our label. He seemed like he really cared, and did everything he could to help us in the five years we worked together. I was getting frustrated up to that point too, Jeff Warner and I had gotten into a fight backstage somewhere, so there was tension. It also seemed that everyone was losing the hungry “I’ll do anything” attitude, and just coasting along expecting something to happen. A couple of the guys resented that I was always the take charge, take control guy, but I knew if I left it to them, nothing would probably happen.”

You can read the rest of the interview with Tommy Thayer at Vinyl Writer Music‘s website.